What is Content Planning and why it is important?

Content Creation is a skill that will be useful to you in every aspect of life.

Content Planning is as important as Content Creation. But why so?

Know in this blog.

In today's time, if you want to create your brand's identity in the digital world or increase the subscribers of your website, brand or product on the Internet, then the right content is very important for this. Without content, neither can you create your identity in the digital world nor will you be able to make your brand, website, or product famous.

The most important thing here is that in today's era, whatever you see or read on the Internet or through digital medium, everything is actually content. It is the content that makes us interested in the digital world. Without content, nothing can be interesting in this digital age.

Whether it is a website or a short video platform or a long form video platform or any other type of content consumption platform, you will find content everywhere. Although content has many purposes, today we will talk about how you can progress at a rapid pace through content planning in your business.

If you want to make your business successful, then first of all you have to create an identity for your business through digital medium and for this content planning is very important. Only through content planning, one can promote and propagate his brand or his product through digital medium all over the world and can easily increase his sales and popularity very quickly.

You must have heard about digital marketing. These are such marketing techniques through which you can deliver your products to customers without any middleman.

Talking about digital marketing, digital marketing is nothing without content or we can say that digital marketing is only because of content. The entire strategy of digital marketing depends on content and content planning.

What is Content Planning?

I have already told you about content and nowadays everyone knows about content but very few people know about content planning.

Without content planning, it is not easy to create the right content.

It also makes no sense to create such content in which you cannot present your thoughts and knowledge in the right way.

In simple words, content planning is a plan or strategy that you use to create your content so that you present your research, knowledge and thoughts to people in an interesting way.

Content planning is a prototype using which you execute your thoughts and knowledge in the right way to create content.

Through content planning, we try to see what goal we want to achieve with our content and in which direction we want to take it further.

Through content planning, we also ensure that how our content will attract our customer towards our product. Also, through digital medium, it helps us to reach maximum number of customers in very less time.

That is, through Content Planning, you create a strategy in which you work to make your brand big and famous on the Internet through your content.

How is Content Planning different from Content Strategy?

Whenever it comes to Content, 2 words are heard a lot: Content Planning and Content Strategy.

Now people think that Content Planning and Content Strategy are both the same but it is not so. These two are completely different terms and concepts but yes, both are related to each other.

Content Planning is the very first step of Content Strategy, that is, if you make any Content Strategy, then the first step you will take in it is Content Planning.

Talking about Content Strategy, everything related to Content is included in it, that is, from Content Creation, Content Planning, Execution to Results.

One more new thing is added to Content Strategy which is – Marketing, that is, how and where the marketing of that content is done. Content Strategy also includes all types of your Marketing Channels where your content is present or where you publish content.

Why is Content Planning important?

Content Planning is very important for business. There is no doubt that if you do not do Content Planning, then your Content Strategy will also be completely unsuccessful because as I have already told you that the first step of any Content Strategy is Content Planning.

You all must have heard this before that if you want to achieve anything, then it is necessary that you first do planning because it is impossible to execute any strategy without a plan.

So let's know about those reasons due to which you will be able to understand why Content Planning is so important.

The first reason is that Content Planning tells us for whom and why we are creating the content. Now if you do not know who the target audience is and what are their requirements, then what is the use of your content? In this way you will not be able to create the right content.

So the first reason that shows why Content Planning is important is that it tells us for whom we have to create the content.

If you know who your target audience is or for whom you have to create your content, then after this you have to focus on how you will deliver that content to the target audience.

Content planning is also important because it lets us know very easily how we will deliver our content to our target audience.

Content planning also helps us to create a better team so that our team can create and execute the content in a very good way.

Content planning tells us which people we will need in our content team and which person will play what role in content creation, marketing and publishing etc.

Content planning also helps us a lot in making the budget from content creation to publishing it, that is, how much money we will spend in creating our content, marketing it or publishing it.

Which Steps are Involved in Content Planning?

Content Planning involves many steps. Let's know more about these steps:

• What is the Purpose or Objective of Content?

The first and most important thing in Content Planning is that for what purpose you are creating the content. There is some objective to start any work, without objective no work can be successful. Therefore, first of all you have to find out the purpose of your content i.e. why are you creating that content?

So as you must be knowing that in the digital age, content is one of the keys to success. Be it business or entertainment, content brings success in every field. The most important thing in content planning is that your objective should be clear.

The entire process of your content planning will move forward according to your objective.

If you have to create content for your business or for brand promotion or to make the brand big or famous in the digital age, then for this your content plan will be different on the basis of the audience's need and demand. On the other hand, if you have to create content for entertainment, then for that also you will have to do content planning in a different way.

Many people also do content planning to increase their popularity. Therefore, before proceeding with content planning, it is very important for you to know what is the purpose of your content and this is the first step of your content planning.

• Who is your content for?

Now that you know the purpose of your content, you have to consider who your content is for. Who is your target audience?

Target audience means with which category of people you want to share your content. There are many factors in target audience:

• First, with which age group of people do you want to share your content.

• Second, with which location of people do you want to share your content. Location here means a particular country or a particular region.

Apart from this, there are some other important things which you have to consider, such as:

• First: Who do you want to target in the target audience, male or female?
• Second: Is your content for children or adults?
• Third: Is your content for any religion, caste, community or organization?

So overall you have to see for which type of target audience you have to plan your content, only then the demand for your content will increase.

If you target a particular audience group, you will be more successful. If you do this, then your target audience will want to read or watch your content again and again and hence they will repeatedly visit your content sharing platforms like website, social media profiles and YouTube channel.

• Content As A Solution

This is an important step in Content Planning. You must have heard about CTA i.e. Call-To-Action. Call-To-Action is a must in any type of content.

In simple words, it means that any user who reads or watches your content should find the solution to his problem in your content. Only then will the users read your content again and again because they get the solution to their problem in it and in such a situation, you can force the user to take some action in a positive way.

That is why the content should always be based on Call-To-Action. It should not happen at all that the users become unsatisfied after reading your content. Pay full attention to the fact that the users must get some benefit from your content so that the users take some action. But now the question comes that what will be this action of the users?

This action of the users should be in a positive way. For example, suppose you have created content on one of your products, then display that product in such a way that your product solves the problems of the users so that the user takes an action and that action is to buy your product.

So now you must have understood that you have to plan the content in such a way that it solves the problem of the users so that the user takes an action after reading or watching your content and that action is in your favor.

• Type Of Content

Now let's talk about Types of Content. Here first of all we have to see what kind of content we want to create?

How many types of content are there, it depends on content planning. In the content planning process itself, you have to decide what kind of content you want to create.

Also Read - Learn Content Creation: A Better Career Opportunity

Based on content planning, there are three to four types of content such as: Video Content, Text Content, Audio Content and Visual Content.

Now you have to create or design your content as per your content. Also, on the basis of this, you have to make a budget and hire a content creator.

Also Read - Top 9 Practices For Effective Content Creation

• If your content is only text, then you will need a content writer.
• If your content is video, then you will need a video creator or editor.
• If your content is visual content, then you may also need a graphic designer for it.

Now as soon as you choose the type of your content, you will start working on your content accordingly.

• Content Publishing Platforms

Now as soon as your content is created, you have to ensure on which platform you want to publish your content.

Today there are many mediums and many platforms available to publish content. So you have to see on which platform the target audience you have selected is most active and through which medium they like to consume content.

For example, today's youth are most active on social media platforms and social media is the best option in today's era to publish content. Millions of people are active on social media all the time and its user base is increasing day by day. Along with this, publishing content on your own website is also a good option.

Having an official channel on YouTube is also a good option in today's time because crores of people are active on YouTube all the time and the best medium to consume content in today's time is video. You can also give the link of your website on your Youtube Channel, along with this you can also share the link of your different social media platforms.

But even today the best medium for publishing content is the website. In today's time, whether it is a small business or a big one, everyone has their own official website and on that they publish their products, services or all other information.

With this, all the steps of Content Planning end here. Now you have to proceed according to the Content Strategy.

Understood Content Planning, also saw the difference between Content Planning and Content Strategy. Also saw which steps are included in Content Planning.

Now let's talk about what are the best tools for Content Planning?

Best Tools for Content Planning

There are many types of Content Planning Tools available in the market with the help of which you can easily do Content Planning and can also execute it. So let's know about some of the most important and popular Content Planning Tools:

• ContentCal

ContentCal is a very popular and important content planning tool. It is a mapping software using which you can visualize your content.

By doing this, you will know whether you are following your content planning correctly or not.

Along with this, there is also an option of automatic posting, that is, you can also schedule the content. In this process, you optimize the post publishing settings once and then it keeps posting automatically.

• MarketMuse

MarketMuse is a very good content planning tool. With its help, you can measure your content in great depth. Not only this, you can measure your content as well as your competitor's content so that you can find out where your content stands in front of your competitor. This tool also gives title and keyword suggestions, which will make it easier for you to rank your content on search engines.

• Monday.com

Monday.com is a very popular content planning tool and not only this, it is also a project management tool. You will not find a better tool than this to manage content for your entire team. From creating a schedule to assigning work to team members, this tool will help you in everything.

You can also plan your future content through this tool. The best thing is that you can integrate this tool with many other communication tools which establishes a very good communication between you and your team members.

• Trello

Communication is very important for content planning and there is no better tool than Trello for communication. There is no better tool than this for collaboration as well.

Trello can help you in every task from Content Calendar to Marketing Campaign and from To-Do List to Future Scheduling.

Conclusion

We all know the importance of planning, so it is important to do complete planning before starting any new work.

Content is very important for digital marketing but before creating content, you have to do content planning because this is also the first step of your content strategy. Without content planning, your content strategy will not be successful and neither will you be able to take your business forward. Therefore, more important than content is its planning. If content planning is good, then content and its marketing will also be good automatically.

If you want to make your business successful, then first of all you have to create an identity of your company or your business through digital mediums and you will be able to do this only when you have done content planning correctly.

If you promote and propagate your brand, company, products or services through digital medium through content planning correctly, then you can easily increase the sales of your products or services and your popularity very quickly.

Also, by making a content plan, you can keep everything from content creation to publishing and budgets under your control.

I hope that through this blog you have understood Content Planning deeply and you would definitely like to take advantage of its benefits.